Striking Alchemy

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of a multi-brand ecommerce company that focuses on creating the best American vision for alpaca fashion and alpaca products. Started over 20 years ago, I have seen it all online and worked with multiple agencies over the years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Striking Alchemy, and what were your goals?

We really needed everything. Our ecommerce platform was out of date and holding our product offerings and customer experience back. We asked Striking Alchemy to design and develop a new ecommerce website on a better platform and all the marketing integrations to go with it.

SOLUTION

How did you select Striking Alchemy and what were the deciding factors?

In speaking with Striking Alchemy they really took the time to understand our product and what unique benefits alpaca garments provide. They had both the ecommerce experience and creative vision to bring a complete upgrade to our company and brand. Finally, we really wanted a partner that we could work with long-term to support us as the business hopefully grew.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Quite honestly, we came to SA really needed everything. Luckily for us, they were able break the project scope down in such a manner that we were able to quickly make progress while still running a business.

Beginning with our branding which had not been touched in years, they were able to keep the familiar elements that connected with our customers but give it a fresh, updated look that is still perfect today. When it came to the website, what really impressed me was their ecommerce knowledge and understanding of our site/sales analytics.

They were able to re-organize our product catalog in such a way that matched with our audience's buying behaviors and how they wanted to shop. These considerations and attention to detail made all the difference in the finished site.

The ecommerce platform (BigCommerce) they built our website on was a great fit for our needs. Platforms like these always have some limitations, however SA always had creative solutions to achieve what we needed. We've been on this platform for numerous years now and it continues to be a wonderful fit.

Lastly, key for us was marketing and online support after the website was done. We've counted on SA for setting up our social accounts, PPC, SEO, and email. Each year we still work together to establish our entire year long marketing calendar and campaigns.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked primarily with a project manager who guided the entire process. Having a single point of contact is wonderful. Even after a number of years we still have the same PM. The security and trust built over the years is invaluable at this point.

The PM coordinated everything for us, from communicating our feedback to the design team, to ensuring the development of site. Any time we need something, my team knows who to contact.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

They stuck to the project schedule they outlined and delivered each milestone on time. Each year has been better than the last since we started working with SA. This past year in fact was our best yet by far.

Even after all these years, they still bring creative ideas to our business that grows our sales. Any time we have a question or a new person needs trained on something, they take the time explain things thoroughly and in ways we can easily understand. It's been a tremendous relationship from both a working and bottom-line perspective.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

SA uses Basecamp (a project management tool) and so all progress was tracked and status easy to stay on top of. When it came time to look at website proofs, they used a prototype tool InVision to create interactive proofs we could actually click on and test out the customer experience with.

Ideas are clearly communicated and discussed whether it be via phone of email. We regularly have Zoom meetings.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their knowledge of ecommerce systems - how everything works together to create effective sales channels has really been impressive, but also just their responsiveness and approachability. They are friendly and care about how our business performs. You can feel the care in their work and I can see it in our sales performance.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I wish we could clone their whole team and adopt them. They really are wonderful partners for us.